


N Y X, Glaive • after midnight

by aliatori



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Music, EDM AU, Flirting, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Shotgunning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 18:16:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18145718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliatori/pseuds/aliatori
Summary: Nyx trying to put on his own performances, manage a schedule packed to bursting (even with his five star assistant, Pelna), produce a new album,andcarve out careful chunks of pre-dawn hours to spend with Gladio has got to be taking a toll. Hell, he’s been feeling it too, and no amount of adrenaline from the crush he’s nursing can keep him awake some nights.Gladio and Nyx unwind in the twilight hours after N Y X's show.





	N Y X, Glaive • after midnight

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to bump [restless sea](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4deSLmpuiGM) as loud as you can stand while reading this
> 
> inspired by [@TIERCIEL's](https://twitter.com/TIERCIEL) EDM AU over on Twitter and [this playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/1228897204/playlist/1vqUKxHDbUKgJNqoGvk8pa?si=LHRtKZLFQZ2-R64y8-1SOA) by [@filipinapanda](https://twitter.com/filipinapanda)

Being involved in the EDM scene means Gladio sees the sunrise from the other side of 6AM more than he’d like. He _used_ to be a morning person before his career as Glaive took off. He misses little pieces of it, sometimes, like the crisp edge to the air before his habitual morning run, or the silence of potential energy curled in every corner of Insomnia before the day began.

Then he looks at Nyx standing across from him on the balcony, forearms braced against the railing, expression pensive, eyes reflecting the glittering lights of nighttime Insomnia, and he doesn’t miss mornings at all.

“Long night,” Gladio offers into the silence. It’s noncommittal enough to pass without response, or it could be an opening, and Gladio isn’t sure what kind of mood Nyx is in tonight.

Nyx drops his head between his shoulders and chuckles. Artificial light catches the delicate feather dangling from his ear cuff, creating a lightshow in miniature against the building behind him. “You can say that again. I don’t know what it is about this round of shows, but I feel like I’m running on empty. Pretty soon I’ll pass out at a venue and start a whole new round of rehab speculation on the socials.” He chuckles, but the sound has a bitter edge.

“I can call Jared to come pick me up so you can get some shut eye, if you want,” Gladio says. What he _doesn’t_ say is that he’s worried about Nyx, that burning the candle from both ends is probably catching up to him, that no human being can reasonably be asked to subsist on cans of energy drinks and cream cheese bagels and creative mania. He _also_ doesn’t suggest that he might be contributing to Nyx’s exhaustion, but that seems obvious to Gladio. Nyx trying to put on his own performances, manage a schedule packed to bursting (even with his five star assistant, Pelna), produce a new album, _and_ carve out careful chunks of pre-dawn hours to spend with Gladio has got to be taking a toll. Hell, he’s been feeling it too, and no amount of adrenaline from the crush he’s nursing can keep him awake some nights.

“No, I’m good,” Nyx insists, and when he meets Gladio’s eyes and gives his famous little half-smirk, no amount of logic or willpower can make him pull out his phone and call a ride back home. “Besides, I know what’ll help me unwind.”

“What’s that?”

Nyx’s half-smirk turns into a full on grin as he slides a hand inside his leather jacket (and Gladio tries, really tries, not to let his gaze linger on the fingerless leather gloves Nyx still has on from his stage getup as N Y X, so he settles for the slightly chipped gunmetal grey polish covering his half moon nails). When Nyx withdraws his hand, he has a thin glass tube in it, a joint clearly visible inside, and because he’s a showoff and a jackass, he spins it between his fingers in one of his favourite party tricks.

“I’ve been saving the good shit for a special occasion,” Nyx reassures. From another pocket, he produces a lighter, and a few quick motions have the joint in his palm and the tube banished to its leather abyss.

Gladio raises an eyebrow. “I ain’t sure another long fuckin’ Saturday night is a special occasion.”

“That’s because my sense of imagination is far more developed than yours.” Nyx smiles around the joint tucked between his lips, and there go Gladio’s thoughts again, wildly speculating on what else those lips would look good doing. With a flick of his thumb, Nyx conjures a tiny flame, lifts it to the joint, and inhales.

Gladio’s never seen any variation of Nyx’s sex face—and contrary to his claim, Gladio’s imagination on that front is _very_ developed—but the way his eyelids flutter closed speaks to a special kind of bliss. He tips his head back, exposing the pale column of his throat and sending his single Viking braid tumbling back over his shoulder, and eventually exhales through his nose, breathing smoke out like some kind of cyberpunk dragon.

Okay, yeah. He’s got it _bad_.

Not only does he have it bad, but tonight, with most of the city asleep and every nerve in his body awake, Gladio wants to do something about it.

“You gonna share or be a selfish dick?” Gladio asks, voice taking on a husky edge. They’re not Glaive and N Y X here, just Gladio and Nyx, and he’s tired of dancing around a tension he can feel like the rising energy in a crowded club.

Nyx’s flippant laugh makes his heart rotate in tandem with the sound. He holds out the joint to Gladio and lifts both eyebrows in mock surprise. “Sorry, but I assumed as my tenured health nut friend, you wouldn’t want any.”

Gladio takes a step closer, a summer breeze catching his fluorescent green swing tank and making it billow around his chest. He makes eye contact with Nyx before shaking his head, covering Nyx’s hand with his own, and urging it back towards his mouth.

“Not like that, I don’t,” Gladio rumbles.

It’s been five entire months since Nyx asked him in an after party VIP lounge if he wanted to collab, and yet it’s the first time Gladio’s seen him genuinely stunned. There’s an instant of hesitation, and then Nyx’s usual confidence falls back into place, his lips curving into an impish grin. He holds Gladio’s gaze as he takes a hit, and the connection between them paints his veins neon and electric in the hushed dark of night.

When Nyx lifts his free hand and crooks his pointer finger at Gladio, beckoning him closer, his heartbeat becomes the baseline to a far more human song.

Bending down and bringing his lips next to Nyx’s is the easy part—it’s a kiss in theory and not in practice, because there’s no contact to fan the embers lining every one of his nerves. He’s already breathing in as Nyx starts to blow smoke out, breathing in the cloud of chemicals like he’s been breathing in Nyx himself during stolen nights and crowded shows. He feels high from one hit, which is impossible from the drug, but probable if you take into account the scent of Nyx’s cologne and heat of his skin.

The five seconds it takes Gladio to exhale upwards, the five seconds he has to break eye contact, feels like five lifetimes, but Nyx’s blue-grey eyes are still there waiting when he looks back.

“Again?” Nyx asks, and it’s a question Gladio has heard a hundred times from him during playback in the studio, but never laced with as much longing as it holds now.

“Hell yeah.”

The second and third hits have them both shifting, adjusting, Nyx’s back against the balcony railing and Gladio caging him in, trapping him there as he inhales smoke straight from Nyx’s lungs. By the third, Gladio has a hand braced on the side of Nyx’s neck, and Nyx clings to Gladio’s biceps like he’s in danger of tumbling to a grisly death below. They’re certainly falling somewhere, but Gladio doesn’t care about the details of the destination, only about the journey—Nyx’s fingers digging into his arm, the heat of his thigh slotted between Gladio’s legs, the urge to bury his face in Nyx’s neck and cover every inch of it with his lips.

“If you wanted to kiss me, you could have asked,” Nyx murmurs, gaze no less sharp for the hazy high suffusing it.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Nyx answers by taking a long, deep hit of the joint and flicking the remains off the side of the balcony. He slides his hands up and winds his arms around Gladio’s neck, and this time when Gladio leans in, Nyx makes a loose seal of their lips and exhales. When he pulls back to empty his lungs, Nyx instead holds him in place, forcing him to breathe out through his nose, slow and careful, his open mouth still pressed to Nyx’s. Once the last wisp of smoke is gone, Nyx’s tongue finds Gladio’s, and they trade warm, deep kisses like they have all the time in the world; the soft, wet sounds of their lips meeting is its own kind of music, one that leaves Gladio’s blood rushing south as it haphazardly abandons his other, more vital organs.

Each kiss sends Gladio’s thoughts into a tailspin. He’s long since stopped thinking of Nyx as N Y X, and each taste he gets of his former idol and fellow musician and current friend blurs the lines even more. He’s lightheaded with want, and he drinks Nyx down as surely as he breathed him in not minutes before.

“Wait.” There’s no force behind the word, especially not since Nyx mutters it against Gladio’s mouth on the back of a pant.

He stops anyway.

“What’s up?” Gladio asks, stepping back and giving Nyx some space.

“I…” Nyx makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, eyes screwed shut. “Fuck, I want this, _badly_ , but I want it sober. I want to be all the way here. You deserve that much.”

It clicks into place. It’s a touchy subject for Nyx, tender, tucked beneath layers Gladio’s only seen glimpses of despite the details being plastered on the internet for any enterprising soul to read.

“Sure,” Gladio agrees, because there’s not much more to say, not without ripping out stitches holding fresh wounds and old scars together.

“You good with the couch tonight?” The flash of vulnerability vanishes as quickly as it came, leaving Gladio aching in more places than one.

“Of course.”

As they head back inside, Nyx stops in front of the sliding glass doors and offers Gladio an elaborate mock bow, braid swinging. Gladio punches him lightly in the shoulder for his trouble and rolls his eyes.

“Don’t push your luck,” Gladio threatens, but it’s an empty one.

Nyx laughs, the sound a little more giddy than it might be if he were sober, and closes the door behind them.

Soon, the apartment is quiet, and Gladio’s taken up position on the square island Nyx calls a couch, limbs stretched out over its generous planes. He steals a second to text his whereabouts to the appropriate personnel then settles in, exhaustion draping him as widely as his borrowed blanket.

“You’re a class act, big guy.” Nyx’s words are quiet, fragile, and as close to an apology as he’s ever heard.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Gladio says with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulder.

But Gladio does learn something new, feels it in the record-skipping beat of his heart as Nyx offers him a tired, wonderful smile from the doorframe of his bedroom.

Wherever Nyx is, as long as Gladio’s with him… he’s good.

He’s _great_.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! <3 comments and kudos are appreciated
> 
>  
> 
> [sometimes I tweet things](https://twitter.com/AliatoriEra)


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